Territory

World Premiere

Programme Note

MicomicónMicomicón, invented by Sancho Panza and his friends to cure Don Quixote’s “madness”, is said to be a kingdom near Ethiopia stolen by a giant from its queen, Micomicona, who beseeches the adventurous Don Q. to put her back on the throne (in Cervantes’ great novel, chapters 29-30, book 1). This brief score was commissioned by the Boston Symphony as a present to the extraordinary James Levine. It was composed in New York in 2002.

Fons JuventatisAccording to a Roman myth at recurs in medieval French literature, Jupiter fell for the nymph Juventas (Youth) and turned her into a fountain, whose waters rejuvenate all who bathe in it.

UtopiaThomas More invented the word Utopia ( Ou Topos – no place ), the name for his imagined completely happy society with no central government, which followed draconian laws that governed almost all human activities. For example: every able bodied person had to spend 2 years living and working on a farm, and was allowed to occupy the same house for only a period of 10 years before being forced to move.Sir Thomas More, a devout Catholic, who was Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII and opposed the King’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, was beheaded.

Elliott Carter

Press Quotes

“All three brief pieces are responses to literary fantasies - Micomicón to Don Quixote; The Fountain of Youth to Roman myth; and More's Utopia to Sir Thomas More's vision of an ideal society. The music is fantastical too… always surprising, inevitable, and vividly orchestrated. Micomicón is romantic and heroic; Utopia is dark and severe; Fountain is playful and takes a place in the great tradition of iridescent water music...”Boston Globe

“…a three-part work that, in barely 10 minutes, is a thoroughly complete musical statement. The formal Micomicón, the playful Fons Juventatis and the formidable More's Utopia together form a kind of symphony that sounds both densely packed and delicately transparent at the same time.”Boston Herald